As per Maharashtra Municipal Corporation Act, municipal corporations with a population over 30 lakhs will have a minimum of 161 elected corporators and the number would increase for each one lakh population.The Maharashtra government’s decision to increase the number of nominated councillors in civic bodies will raise Pune Municipal Corporation’s (PMC) strength to 176.
The decision was taken in the Cabinet meeting held Tuesday.
Following the decision, a maximum of 10 corporators or 10 per cent of the total number of elected corporators can be nominated in every corporation, as against the nomination of five councillors, as was done earlier.
Earlier, the PMC had a provision to nominate five members to its general body having a strength of 164 elected members. The nominated seats are distributed in the ratio of elected representatives of political parties in the general body. “Irrespective of the number of members elected to PMC, the state government’s decision to increase nominated members to the civic body would increase from five to 10,” said a civic election officer.
“The process of nominating members to the civic general body is done after the civic elections. Political parties face a tough time to give candidature for elections to each of the aspirants. Many get upset after being denied the party ticket and political parties pacify them during elections by assuring nomination to the civic general body. This number has increased from 5 to 10 so political parties will be able to nominate more members to the civic general body based on their strength in the elected body,” said a Congress leader.
As per Maharashtra Municipal Corporation Act, municipal corporations with a population over 30 lakhs will have a minimum of 161 elected corporators and the number would increase for each one lakh population. Thus, the strength of corporators in PMC is likely to be 166 based on the population data of 2011. The previous state government had cited a delay in the census of 2021 and estimated an increase in the population of the city while deciding to have 173 corporators for PMC for which the election process of delimitation and reservation of seats was conducted.
“The election process for PMC was started but has now come to halt as there is no further communication from the state election commission. There is no clarity over the number of members to be elected to PMC and the number of members in the electoral panel as the decision of the previous Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government has been revised by the new state government,” said an officer of the civic election department.
The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) has already challenged the revision in court.